Behind the North Carolina shooting, where should the contradiction between the doctor and the tutor go?

At 13:02 local time on August 28, a shooting incident occurred at the newly opened University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). In the Caudill Labs of the university, one faculty member died, and no other casualties were reported.

The suspect is Qi Tailei, a 34 year old Chinese student from the university, He was a sophomore doctor in the Department of Applied Physical Science and was arrested 1.5 hours after the incident. On the 29th local time, The school confirmed that the victim was Yan Zijie, associate professor of the Department of Applied Physics, and Qi Tailei's Chinese tutor.

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According to the data of Qi Tailei Lingying, he studied in the School of Physical Science and Technology of Wuhan University from 2010 to 2015, majoring in business administration. From 2015 to 2017, he served as a researcher in Suzhou New Materials Research Institute, and from 2017 to 2019, he served as an assistant researcher in South University of Science and Technology.

In 2019, Qi Tailei went to the United States to study. He first spent two years getting a master's degree in materials and engineering from Louisiana State University, Then he came to North Carolina to study for a doctor in 2022 and joined Professor Yan Research Group since January The research topics include machine learning, light matter interaction and spectral analysis.

Contradiction behind the shooting

The profile of a user whose ID is "Tailei Qi" on the social platform is consistent with the photo of Qi Tailei published by North Carolina, sharing part of his life after reading the blog.

He likes small animals and often cooks his own food. The photos he uploaded include "good looking" egg cakes, "80% recovery" boiled fish, etc I mentioned my struggles in scientific research and interpersonal relationships many times, At present, the account has been frozen.

In July 2022, Tailei Qi posted on his social account, suspecting that his privacy was violated, I work to show my boss, not to drive my interest. "This demeans the meaning of my work, which is disgusting. Self esteem prevents me from working."

Qi Tailei said his privacy was violated

In May 2023, he also expressed a similar expression:“ It's naive for a doctoral student to pay attention to working hours every day ... I know many people want me to show them that they are working and have been working. But, no, it's not human at all. "

At the same time, he expressed his views on controversial social issues. In June 2023, he said that there are many counter intuitive things in today's society: compared with protecting the poor, the minimum wage is more harmful to them; Gender quotas are not intended to protect women, but to increase discrimination.

In August 2022, He mentioned that "bullying seems to be a problem in the United States" and said that he wanted PI (project leader) to help himself out of the predicament, Think that the person in charge has more experience to deal with girls and gossip.

In November 2022, He again suspected that someone wanted to control him by gossiping, But his project leader told him that no one had ever talked to him about it.

Qi Tailei once wanted his tutor to help him get out of trouble

Many people have heard about the academic pressure of doctoral students in American universities for a long time, and this shooting incident is a bloody demonstration of this dilemma to the public.

And after this shot, What is the reason for the pressure of doctoral students, what is the relationship between doctoral students and their supervisors, and how to break through the dilemma, are more worthy of attention.

American Doctoral Study System and Graduation Requirements

Generally speaking, doctoral degrees usually require in-depth research in specific fields, complete independent research projects, and make important contributions to academia or professional fields.

A doctoral student wants to successfully obtain a degree, Usually, a certain amount of academic courses, comprehensive examinations, research plans, academic papers, research results, and defense must be completed; In addition, doctoral degrees usually require students to publish research papers in core academic journals, participate in academic conferences, and make certain contributions in professional fields.

Therefore, the doctoral degree in the United States usually takes many years to complete, usually 5-8 years, depending on the subject area, student research progress and the requirements of the school.

The pressure source of doctoral students

High elimination rate: Different from the undergraduate stage, the graduation rate can usually reach 80% or 90% or higher, and the elimination rate of doctoral students in American universities is as high as 40%.

High academic standards: Doctoral degrees usually require students to achieve excellence in their field. They must independently conduct in-depth research and make original contributions to knowledge and theory in this field.

Long term study period: Doctoral degrees usually require years of study and research, usually five years, and many students have studied for more than seven years, which means that students must continue to invest a lot of time and energy in a project. During this period, students may face long and boring work, long-term uncertainty and financial pressure.

Research uncertainty: In doctoral programs, the research process is often full of uncertainty. Experiments may fail, research directions may need to be adjusted, and mentor relationships may change. These factors will increase students' emotional pressure and anxiety.

Employment competition: Doctoral students usually hope to enter the academic or professional field to engage in research work after completing their studies. However, the competition between academic posts and senior research posts is fierce, and the employment opportunities are limited, which makes doctoral students must have excellent academic achievements and tutor recommendation letters to stand out.

Teacher student relationship between doctors and supervisors

Different from the undergraduate course and the previous stage, the simple relationship between doctors and supervisors is that teachers work hard to teach and preach, students respect teachers and respect Taoism Both teacher-student relationship and employment relationship 。

The two sides share common interests, but their relationship is unequal, The tutor has great power and no supervision mechanism, and can hold several lifelines for doctoral students such as thesis publishing, graduation, job hunting, and green card identity.

First of all, most doctors in the United States have scholarships, living expenses and salaries. These funds mainly come from the tutor's scientific research projects, which puts great pressure on the tutor's academic achievements, and some of these outputs depend on the work of students, so many tutors have high expectations of students.

Tutors need to ensure that students perform well in research to maintain their reputation, professional status and research funds, and some even impose additional pressure.

Doctoral supervisors have great rights. They have the right to expel students when deciding whether to enroll students. If the tutor thinks that the students are not hardworking, have no scientific research achievements, have no future, and have no use value, he can fire the students unilaterally.

Some tutors even blindly put pressure on students for academic achievements, but they do not provide enough guidance and support and lack effective communication. This is likely to cause students to feel isolated and not understood, and then lead to stress, depression and vicious teacher-student relationship.

In the United States, one third to half of doctors come from abroad, and more than half of foreigners work in math and engineering doctoral programs. Among them, one of the important motivations for a large number of students from China, India, Iran, and Eastern European countries to go to the United States for doctoral studies is to stay in the United States, find teaching positions, and obtain American identity.

However, The academic and industrial R&D circles in the United States rely heavily on the recommendation system, Among them, the recommendation letter of the doctoral supervisor is particularly critical. If you can't have a good relationship with the supervisor, there will be a huge black hole in your career that can't be filled.

As long as the tutor doesn't write you a recommendation letter, the American dream of these students will be on the verge of breaking. And in a cross-cultural environment, the communication between students and tutors may be affected by cultural differences, leading to more misunderstandings and conflicts.

How to alleviate the contradiction between students and tutors?

The academic pressure of tutors and students, the lack of supervision and support systems, the ambiguity of power boundaries and other factors have led to endless incidents such as tutors' PUA, excessive pressure, and even encroachment on students' research achievements. Despite these problems, many tutors and students have established positive and supportive cooperative relationships.

Zhihu users are hard to be confused (Tsinghua University, PhD in public management) wrote:

"My tutor is Daniel, but I always remember my tutor said to me when I first entered the university: 'You are not my apprentice, and don't be a good student. You are an independent young scholar and my academic colleague, and I will have something wrong. You should have an academic argument with me.

You should carefully arrange your scientific research work to remind me to help you. Don't expect me to follow you and urge you like a middle school teacher - because this is your job, and you should be responsible for your work. If you come to me, I will help you '. "

Now more and more universities have taken various measures to help establish better teacher-student relations, For example, mental health support, tutor evaluation and feedback, tutor training plans, tutor committees, and many universities have also set up doctoral affairs offices or similar institutions to help solve problems related to the tutor relationship and provide support and resources.

For example, the University of Southern California Graduate Student Support Services provides academic support for master and doctoral students, such as Fellowship Boot Camp and Proposal Review Clinic At the same time, it also provides tutor training and handbooks to help them better understand their roles and how to effectively guide doctoral students.

The tragedy in North Carolina also sounded an alarm for the university, The doctoral study career is a lonely, boring, and even often hopeless difficult road, and a good teacher-student relationship is crucial to the success of the research career.

The relationship between students and supervisors should be based on mutual respect, openness and good communication. For students, If you inevitably encounter a mentor who brings pressure, you should seek help from the outside as soon as possible.

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